Tuesday, January 14, 2014

NOTD: Julep Clara

Julep describes Clara (a polish from the ‘It Girl’ series) as an opaque peach crème. To my surprise, this colour is quite opaque despite its light shade. It is fairly close to my skintone and looks a bit like I’m wearing foundation on my nails. That said, I received compliments on this colour and many people told me that it makes my nails look very clean and professionally manicured. I also like how it didn’t clash with any of my outfits for the week.

My issue with this polish is with the formula. It is quite thick. I used three coats because it did not dry smoothly after the first two coats. If I did not encounter this problem, I would not have needed that extra coat because the colour is not sheer at all. It also took quite a long time to dry. I painted my nails around 2 PM and it was still a bit sticky by 5. I even smudged a nail by accident about an hour after applying the last coat and I needed to remove the polish and repaint the entire nail because I could not get the touch up coat to set evenly. The only other Julep polish that I have is Gabrielle and I do not have the same trouble with it.

Despite the struggles that I had with the formula, Clara went for four days without any chips and it dried to a nice shiny finish. This was very surprising since I usually experience the first signs of chipping much sooner when I use more than two coats of polish.
Since the colour is very pretty and versatile, I will keep it in my rotation of work appropriate weekday colours.